Culture must change and shift to align with the word of God. Let all the pastors in Nigeria who are using their financial might to lock up haters and defamers across the country go back to God and repent, if they truly believe in the heaven and hell they are preaching. Additionally, let them release all their victims, disciple them, show them Christ, and launch them out as sons and daughters into the kingdom.
As we speak, Satan has penetrated the Nigerian church, and has produced a false version of the gospel. Satan has polluted our altars with the gospel of vengeance and hate. A lot of pastors and leaders in the Nigerian church have forsaken the basic tenets of the gospel and are propagating the gospel of hate and vengeance. They use the Police and the courts in very active ways to hunt down critics, persecutors, haters, and, even sometimes, those who are speaking the truth to them. There have been several cases of younger pastors and church members locked up in various prisons and detention centres across Nigeria on the orders of some church leaders.
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This has significantly damaged the brand and dignity of the church, producing more vengeful generations of younger pastors with the same venomous appetite to attack and hunt down critics. We have missed it and have derailed the younger generation. This is exactly the reason behind the impact-less gospel that is being preached in Nigeria. This gospel is riddled with vengeance and is bereft of love. It is a gospel of the powerful and the rich; the famous and the big. It is the gospel of caucuses and cliques. It is a gospel of money and materialism. It is a gospel that is in total rebellion against the basic teachings of Christ and the Apostles. Consequently, it lacks the power and potency to influence Nigeria and Nigerians.
It is a known fact that once a man signs up to preach the gospel, critics, attackers, defamers, and all sorts of agents would show up. The Bible says, “Those that will live godly in Christ will suffer persecution” (2 Timothy 3:12). Apostle Paul was persecuted and killed; Peter was killed; all the Apostles, except John were brutally killed. They never cursed. They never hated their persecutors. No wonder their messages have stayed effective and influential through time and history. All through Church history, genuine servants of God were persecuted, defamed, lied against, and killed. Their silence and Christlikeness were the seed for the revival of the gospel that exploded through history.
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Joseph Ayo Babalola was arrested, lied against, and taken to court. Kenneth E Hagin was insulted, attacked, defamed, and lied against. Reinhard Bonnke was ganged up against, lied against, defamed, and even threatened to be killed several times in Africa. The list is endless. None of these servants of God fought with Police. None fought for their names. Name? A dead man has no name. Paul said, “I am crucified with Christ.”
David Livingstone was attacked, maligned, and abused. Adoniram Judson was maligned, lied against, defamed, and locked up by the government of Burma. Joseph Ayo Babalola was arrested, lied against, and taken to court. Kenneth E Hagin was insulted, attacked, defamed, and lied against. Reinhard Bonnke was ganged up against, lied against, defamed, and even threatened to be killed several times in Africa. The list is endless. None of these servants of God fought with Police. None fought for their names. Name? A dead man has no name. Paul said, “I am crucified with Christ.” No wonder the world has never recovered from the fiery effects of the ministerial impact of these men.
What name are we protecting? We have no name except the name of Christ. What image do we have to protect? Our strength is not in our ability to protest and fight for our names. Our strength is in our ability to respond to the haters and critics and defamers with love, compassion, and forgiveness. Nothing transforms the world like the love of Christ. To be a servant of God is to be an enemy of Satan. We must not respond to hate with hate, but with love. We must not respond to defamation with arrests and incarceration, but with love. If you are truly a genuine follower of Jesus, God will defend you when men attack you. And if God doesn’t, let your case be like those of the three Hebrew boys — there is certainly a message in your mess.
The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, they are spiritual. No one continuously attacks and defames a genuine servant of God. Two things must happen. He either pulls the undiscerning servant of God into the flesh to respond with hate or pulls a discerning servant of God to respond in love. The former produces vanity. Jesus said, “the flesh profits nothing” (John 6:63). But the latter produces either the judgement of God at God’s instance on the defamer or the reformation of this person into another Paul for the kingdom of God.
God is not coming to re-write the Bible for Nigerian pastors or for American pastors. The word of God does not change and shift with culture. Culture must change and shift to align with the word of God. Let all the pastors in Nigeria who are using their financial might to lock up haters and defamers across the country go back to God and repent, if they truly believe in the heaven and hell they are preaching. Additionally, let them release all their victims, disciple them, show them Christ, and launch them out as sons and daughters into the kingdom.
The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, they are spiritual. No one continuously attacks and defames a genuine servant of God. Two things must happen. He either pulls the undiscerning servant of God into the flesh to respond with hate or pulls a discerning servant of God to respond in love. The former produces vanity. Jesus said, “the flesh profits nothing” (John 6:63). But the latter produces either the judgement of God at God’s instance on the defamer or the reformation of this person into another Paul for the kingdom of God. God bless the Nigerian Church.
Ayo Akerele is the senior pastor of Rhema Assembly and the founder of the Voice of the Watchmen Ministries in Ontario, Canada. He can be reached through [email protected]
